Do you still remember ‘Revitalizing China’?
—-Su Xiaokang commenting on the Tokyo Olympics: Japan defeated China to win the mixed doubles table tennis championship
[Note: The phrase ‘Down with the Chinese team’ could not have appeared in the 1980s; Chinese soldier table tennis competitions were once a powerful tool for nationalist sentimentality. Small balls have indeed turned big balls. Look at today’s world: China and the US have become double dominants. Where is the ‘Little Japan’ left? So this Olympics, Japan’s victory over China to win the mixed doubles table tennis championship was truly an epic comeback victory. Let’s look at history and find out. This article is quoted from the section “Television Broadcasting and Sports Sensationalism” in “The Age of Dragon Slaying.” 】
China is a closed country, and television often fools both viewers and controllers. The charm of strong men can be shattered by the publicness of television, and the public’s arrogant patriotism will be stripped away, leaving them embarrassed and angry. Sports broadcasts on TV are a kind of madness, constantly stirring up painful patriotic feelings while immediately venting them.
Using television to instill widespread patriotism among the public has always been a common practice in Chinese television. In April 1961, the 26th World Table Tennis Championships, an international competition that made television and table tennis famous in China, remains vivid in the Chinese people’s memories. The entire so-called “motherland discourse” was deeply ingrained in their hearts at that time—Zhuang Zedong’s bravery, Li Furong’s steady keystrokes, Xu Yinsheng’s twelve powerful spikes to defeat Xingye, and Qiu Zhonghui’s desperate point to win the women’s singles championship. These seemed like fateful battles that drove Chinese people wild at the time.
Beijing had about ten thousand televisions at the time, and almost every one was crowded with several hundred people. At the 36th World Table Tennis Championships in 1981, China swept seven world championships. For a moment, it seemed as if ‘drawing the sword and looking around, lost in thought.’ People lost interest in the ‘small ball’ of table tennis, and Chinese table tennis plummeted from its peak.
At the same time, Chinese people were troubled by their “big ball.” Football is disappointing, unable to break through even in Asia, causing great suffering among fans. Every time the TV station broadcasts it, it causes trouble. Suddenly, in 1981, at the third World Cup held in Japan, the Chinese women’s volleyball team won China’s first big-ball championship, and then went on to win two consecutive and three consecutive championships, becoming national heroes. At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, competing for a “fourth consecutive gold,” just as the final game was about to be decided, the live broadcast suddenly switched to “Xinwen Lianbo,” enraging the audience and causing widespread dissatisfaction. Later, the opening news feature of the CCP’s 13th National Congress conflicted with the broadcast schedule of the crucial match for Chinese football breaking out of Asia, and the central government approved the time slot to be given to fans.
1981 was the year of sports for the Chinese people. On March 20, CCTV broadcast the Asian qualifiers of the Volleyball World Cup live via international communication satellite. The Chinese men’s volleyball team turned the table, defeating South Korea to win the group championship. After the broadcast, students from Peking University, Fudan University, and USTC immediately marched on campus, chanting “Revitalize China”—the most emotional slogan of the 1980s, a grassroots product triggered by a sports event broadcast. That day, someone even ran to the front of the Fuxingmen Broadcasting Building, shouting, “Long live CCTV.”
In fact, it was precisely the 1981 university students who shouted the slogan “Revitalize China” that caught the special meaning of the CCP’s ideological “top scholar” Hu Qiaomu, giving new inspiration to the CCP’s “political maneuvers.” That time, Peking University students cheered for China’s victory by burning newspapers, burning brooms, pounding rice bowls, and washing basins, marching on campus, and for the first time chanting the slogan ‘Revitalize China.’ The commotion lasted until two or three in the morning, yet not a single news media outlet in the capital reported it—reporters naturally saw it as a prank, and the 1981 students were still indifferent to the ‘student movement’—who would have thought Hu Qiaomu harshly criticized Xinhua News Agency: ‘You have so little political sensitivity or flexibility. Why don’t you know how to ‘guide’ students’ patriotism? This directive was immediately communicated to all news agencies. I also heard this message through the channels of China National Radio. At the time, I just shrugged, not expecting that this incitement was foreshadowed here, and that the line was planted thousands of miles away.
How ironic! The slogan “Revitalize China” was actually a gift from the students to the Zhongnanhai Elderly Party, reminding them of a popular opinion and a legitimate resource to be utilized. It made them suddenly realize: if “opening up” is not paired with “nationalism,” how can one-party dictatorship be maintained? Later, Jiang Zemin was promoted by Deng Xiaoping from Shanghai to Zhongnanhai to replace the deposed Zhao Ziyang, and he understood this gift deeply.
This article is reprinted from Su Xiaokang’s Facebook